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June 26, 2006
I've puzzled over this cartoon. Is it the left selling out? Is it the left giving up its liberal democratic values in the war on terrorism? Has the condition of the left got so bad that it has been reduced to having a garage sale of its values?
John Spooner
Then I read Janet Albrechtsen in The Australian on the war on Western values being waged within the West. This is the conservative meme of the West being a terrorist target because of who we are and how we live, our society, our diversity and our values. Values such as freedom, democracy and the rule of law. The the collapse of Western values meme is linked to decline of national identity and rebuilding building national identity in opposition to the multicultural rot.
Albrechtsen says:
For too long, the multicultural mind-set has acted like a two-pronged censor. It forbids talk that applauds the majority culture. And it's an even more potent censor when it comes to criticising minorities. Both are out of bounds according to these Two Commandments of Multiculturalism.
She talks about multiculturalism in terms of a faith, as a religion---the 'secular faith of multiculturalism' and the dismal and dangerous failure of the Left's preference for multicultural moral relativism.That points to a monoculture doesn't it?
On this conservative account liberal multiculturalism allows, or even nurtures, homegrown Islamic terrorism. Since Muslims place religion before nationality they create a divided society and can't be trusted to be loyal to Australia. Multiculturalism turns a blind eye and a deaf ear to a local network of radical Islamists who preach hatred and plot jihad. So conservatives have to fight to secure the nation's own absolute values.
Is that a plausible interpretation of the Spooner cartoon.?
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I suspect it is having no use for those values.
May as well flog them for what little they are worth
and get on with life.
(life without those values is not a nice way to go)